Seven books that grapple with the gig economy

Anandi Mishra is a Sweden-based critic and communications professional. She has worked as a reporter for The Times of India and The Hindu. One of her essays has been translated to Italian and published in the Internazionale magazine. Her essays and reviews have appeared in the Public Books, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Review of Books, Virginia Quarterly Review, Popula, The Brooklyn Rail, Al Jazeera, among others.

At Electric Lit Mishra tagged seven books that "show us the varied relationships people have with money, who gets to make it, and at what cost to themselves." One title on the list:

Flesh by David Szalay (2025)

Istavan, Flesh’s shy, reticent protagonist, moves through life in search of nothing much. He’s introverted but never not working, often in conversations with others, but never speaks much himself. Instead of looking for his next assignment, work finds him and delivers him to the next stage in life. Through a series of jobs starting from a drug delivery agent to a war soldier to a pub bouncer to a driver to a business owner and back to being a pub bouncer again, Istavan’s life is shown through vignettes of various jobs he holds in different stages of life and how it impacts him. No matter what the life situation, he is forever that lonesome outsider trying to make ends meet. Szalay’s portrait of Istavan’s rags-to-riches life is singular in the way it is told. Szalay often skips the more intense parts of Istavan’s experiences, leaving them to the reader’s imagination. The resultant book is racy, remote, and roiling, capturing the way work dominates the lives of those of us who have nothing to lose because we come from nothing.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

--Marshal Zeringue